Having the eyes of the ladies in her direction, Mrs. Harbinger improved the opportunity to give the signal to rise, and the talk between Alice and Jack was for that evening broken off. XXVI THE WOOING OF A WIDOW "Jack," Mrs. Neligage observed one morning when her son had dropped in, "I hope you won't mind, but I've decided to marry Harry Bradish." Jack frowned slightly, then smiled. Probably no man is ever greatly pleased by the idea that his mother is to remarry; but Jack was of accommodating temper, and moreover was not without the common sense necessary for the acceptance of the unpalatable. He trimmed the ashes from the cigarette he was smoking, took a whiff, and sent out into the air an unusually neat smoke-ring. He sat with his eyes fixed upon the involving wreath until it was shattered upon the ceiling and its frail substance dissolved in air. "Does Bradish know it?" he inquired. "Oh, he doesn't suspect it," answered she. "He'll never have an idea of such a thing till I tell him, and then he won't believe it." Jack laughed, blew another most satisfactory smoke-ring, and again with much deliberation watched it ascend to its destruction. "Then you don't expect him to ask you?" he propounded at length. "Ask me, Jack? He never could get up the courage. He'd lie down and die for me, but as for proposing--No, if there is to be any proposing I'm afraid I should have to do it; so we shall have to get on without." "It wouldn't be decorous for me to ask how you mean to manage, I suppose." "Oh, ask by all means if you want to, Jacky dear; but never a word shall I tell you. All I want of you is to say you aren't too much cut up at the idea." "I've brought you up so much to have your own way," Jack returned in a leisurely fashion, "that I'm afraid it's too late to begin now to try to control you. I wish you luck." They were silent for some minutes. Mrs. Neligage had been mending a glove for her son, and when she had finished it, she rose and brought it to him. She stood a minute regarding him with an unwonted softness in her glance. "Dear boy," she said, with a tender note in her voice, "I haven't thanked you for the money you sent Langdon." He threw his cigarette away, half turning his face from her as he did so. "It's no use to bring that up again," he said. "I'm only sorry I couldn't have the satisfaction of kicking him." She shook her head. "I've wanted you to a good many times," returned she, "but that's a luxury that we couldn't afford. It would cost too much." She hesitated a moment, and added: "It must have left you awfully hard up, Jack." "Oh, I'm going into the bank. I'm a reformed man, you know, so that doesn't matter. If I can't play polo what good is money?" His mother sighed. "I do wish Providence would take my advice about giving the money round," she remarked impatiently. "Things would be a great deal better arranged." "For us they would, I've no doubt," he assented with a grin.